One last reply here, but CCing COFF where this thread really belongs...
On Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 12:34 PM Timothe Litt <litt(a)ieee.org> wrote:
OTOH, and probably more consistent with your
experience, card equipment was
almost unheard of when the DEC HW ran Unix...
You're probably right about that Tim, but DEC world was mostly
TOPS/TENEX/ITS and UNIX. But you would think that since a huge usage of
UNIX systems were as RJE for IBM gear at AT&T. In fact, that was one of
the 'justifications' if PWB. I'm thinking of the machine rooms I saw in
MH, WH and IH, much less DEC, Tektronix or my university time. It's funny,
I do remember a lot of work to emulate card images and arguments between
the proper character set conversions, but I just don't remember seeing actual
card readers or punches on the PDP-11s, only on the IBM, Univac and CDC
systems.
As other people have pointed out, I'm sure they must have been around, but
my world did not have them.